South Africa: The Facts About Land Expropriation

On Tuesday 27th February, the news we’ve all feared for some time emerged from South Africa. Parliament passed a motion, tabled by EFF (Economic Freedom Fighters) leader Julius Malema, by 241 votes to 83, that stipulates that the state should amend the constitution to permit the expropriation of White-owned land without compensation. This confirms our deepest fear, namely that South Africa may go the way of Zimbabwe and begin an essentially genocidal campaign against its white population, taking their livelihoods and homes to redress and alleged historical wrong.

This issue has brought to the surface an age-old debate about the position of White Europeans living in former colonial nations. Predictably, the liberal media around the world, if it has bothered to address this topic at all, has referred to this proposed constitutional amendment as a means of redressing an historical wrong. They, like the Marxist government in South Africa, spout the usual line about the evil White man arriving in Africa and violently dispossessing the native Africans of their land and, thus, arresting their development. Reading between the lines, they essentially blame the White man of yesterday for the Black man’s lack of prosperity today.

Historical Revisionism

There are many points here with which we take issue. Firstly, let us be clear: the suggestion that European colonialists arrived in Africa and partook in an organised campaign of systematic land theft is a myth. It simply did not happen. When the first Dutch settlers arrived, under the command of Jan van Riebeeck in the Spring of 1652, they did not find thriving communities of native Africans, the noble savage as some enlightenment philosophers dubbed them. Instead, they found thousands of square miles of uninhabited wasteland, which they took as their own to begin an overseas colony. This is a matter of historical record. No history book, on either side of the debate, makes reference to a single incident of White-on-Black land theft.

There were, of course, native tribesmen, who were left undisturbed by the Dutch settlers, entirely separate from their colonies. There was no “policy change” as the Dutch built and expanded their colony, nor did theft occur when the British inherited the Cape during the Napoleonic Wars in 1805. Similarly, when the Voortrekkers explored the South African interior in the 1830s, relations between them and the native tribes have been described as ‘peaceful’, with ‘little competition for land’ given the sheer size of the Southern African continent. Thus, the Afrikaans republics of Transvaal and the Orange Free State were set up by the Boers with very little disturbance to the sparsely spread native tribes.

Indeed, the only mention of incursions onto another race’s land in the history books is that of native African tribesmen from Central Africa migrating southwards, attracted by the promise of riches brought by the White man’s innovative farming and mining methods. It would not be a stretch to say that the native Africans, who previously had lived amidst inter-tribal conflict and poverty, benefited greatly from our colonial exploits. This was especially true of the British colonies, which were orderly and profitable and, rightly or wrongly, prepared to integrate migrant workers from central Africa into their economic apparatus.

This process is how Black Africans came to outnumber Europeans in Southern Africa in the first place. This economic migration continued throughout the 19th century and well into the 20th. By this point, the land and its ownership had already been decided by Boer and British settlers, and enshrined in a legal code, many years – sometimes centuries – before the African populous even had numerical parity with Europeans. On the advent of Apartheid in 1948, the Afrikaans policy of separate development for different racial groups, the land was already owned by Europeans. This is important to understand; Apartheid, for all its faults, did not involve the theft of land by any racial group against another. The land question had been settled centuries prior to this.

That is by no means to endorse Apartheid, but just to state a factual point to dispel the myth that an oppressive European regime somehow stole that which the Africans themselves never owned.

The Constitution

In 1994, after a period of concessions from the Afrikaners, the National Party government agreed to end their system of Apartheid – under, it must be said, huge international pressure, primarily from the United States – and hold the country’s first election based on universal suffrage. Predictably, the African National Congress handsomely won this election and Nelson Mandela became President. The rest, as they say, is history.

However, there is an important point to be understood here. The new constitution of the so-called Rainbow Nation was drafted by representative of the ANC, as well as the ruling National Party government officials, to ensure that it was a document representative of the racial uniqueness of the country. Put simply, cooperation was required to ensure that the constitution contained nothing to favour one group or another. As part of this compromise, a clause often referred to as the ‘land clause’, was inserted into the constitution which enshrined property rights in law. It makes specific reference to the fact that land must not be expropriated by the state without compensation, and specifically that no law can be passed permitting the state to take this course of action.

“No one may be deprived of property except in terms of law of general application, and no law may permit arbitrary deprivation of property. Property may be expropriated only in terms of law of general application for a public purpose or in the public interest; and subject to compensation, the amount of which and the time and manner of payment of which have either been agreed to by those affected or decided or approved by a court.”

Thus, the regnant African nationalist government is proposing a flagrant violation of the racially conscious compromise reached in 1994.

What Happens Now?

It’s important to remember that the government of South Africa has merely passed a motion at this stage, it has not yet adopted this expropriation policy as legislation. However, this will change. As the motion passed through the parliament, with minor opposition from some Democratic Alliance MPs and, of course, the small contingent of Freedom Front Plus (Afrikaner) MPs, it is now set to be reviewed by a committee tasked with recommending constitutional amendments. This is essentially a consultation period, where a cross-party alliance investigates the legal ramifications of such a change.

Given that the ANC and EFF Marxists comprise an overall majority on said committee, we can safely assume that they will pay mere lip service to due diligence and approve the necessary legislative changes. The recommendations of the committee are likely to be given to government in August, when an actual vote on the legislation will be brought before parliament. Altering the constitution is no simple task, however, for the government requires a two-thirds super-majority to vote in favour in order for it to be permitted. In numerical terms, that means they need 267 MPs to vote with the government. The governing ANC have 249 MPs, whilst the rabidly anti-White EFF hold 25 seats – that’s a simple equation which indicates that the constitutional change will almost certainly be passed.

Whites as Scapegoat

Since the end of Apartheid in 1994, the African National Congress has metamorphosed from its conciliatory, tolerant governmental beginnings, into a rabidly anti-White Marxist party. It has mismanaged the economy, once the strongest in all Africa, for the last two decades, and is feeling the pressure manifested in the rise of the radically leftist Economic Freedom Fighters. Then, perhaps as a result of the weariness of longevity, the ANC is allowing EFF leader Julius Malema to shape public discourse. The other possibility is that Malema is a good figure to hide behind in the eyes of the international community when, in fact, the ANC privately agree with all of their horrifically anti-White positions.

In any case, the result has been a sharp increase in racial hostilities. As the economy lays in ruins around them, unemployment rises and the value of the Rand continues to fall, the ANC are following the mantra of Mugabe’s Zimbabwe in using the White minority population as a scapegoat. This is a disgustingly cynical way to keep face with their black voter base, despite proving time and again that they’re unfit to manage the national economy. Thus, the White minority finds itself in a familiar situation, at the wrong end of a legislative process to ‘redress historical wrong’ – the latest and, it has to be said, most serious, in a long string of legislative actions designed to suppress white participation in the nation’s economy.

The fact that this course of action severely backfired with great consequences to the black population in Zimbabwe is, undoubtedly, no cause for concern for the regnant ANC. And, it has to be said, Africans being left with the proverbial egg on their face after this plan fails is no consolation to the White population. They will soon be the target of a systematic land theft campaign, unrivalled anywhere in all of history. Their livelihoods, the businesses that have been in families for centuries (and which feed the nation), and in some cases even their homes, should it take the ANC’s fancy, will be arbitrarily removed by a Black nationalist state looking for somebody to blame.

Where’s the Outrage?

Finally, we must now discuss the land expropriation fiasco in the context of international response. Cast your mind back to when Myanmar took defensive measures against a hostile, terrorist Muslim fifth column; the international community and its media mouthpieces were apoplectic! They cried Shoah from the first minute, and are still crying today. One-time darling of the international liberal clique, Aung San Suu Kyi, was widely condemned and calls for her Nobel Prize to be revoked echoed in the annals of every major Western establishment.

Yet today, when the government of South Africa, a former Anglo-Dutch colony and current member of the Commonwealth of Nations, seeks to violate the supposedly sacred and inviolable right to private property, there is an deafening silence. None of the ethnomasochistic White liberal media hacks have bothered to even investigate the story, let alone speak out against it. Not a single Western government official has dared say a word. Only fringe independent journalists and minor-party opposition politicians have spoken up. The media outlets that have reported it have done so with clear bias against the Afrikaner population. For instance, The Independent (itself owned by Coloured individuals) has even reprinted criticism of President Ramaphosa’s ANC government for not addressing ‘the racial disparities in land ownership’ sooner.

English journalist Katie Hopkins did some great work down in South Africa, collecting witness testimony and insider information from the South African police regarding the institutionalised antipathy toward the plight of White farmers in the country. She put herself at great person risk in doing this, yet was universally rounded on upon her return, derided as a racist and an Apartheid apologist. Similarly, independent Canadian journalist Lauren Southern collected hours of footage regarding the farm murders and, again, was widely condemned as racist by the international media. Although, it has to be said, most media outlets simply ignore such reports, for they do not wish to know what’s occurring, let alone, Gods forbid, report on it.

Raising Awareness – An Appeal

Thus, the task falls to independent outlets such as ourselves to spread the facts about the perilous situation for Whites in South Africa. Along with other independent outlets and public figures, we will do everything we can to raise awareness. We’ve recently recorded a podcast on which we had a White South African guest to discuss the specific issue of land expropriation, and we will continue to publish articles, essays and audio on the matter.

Us Europeans, this seemingly endangered species in this clown world we find ourselves living in, are united by ancient roots that no amount of social condition can destroy. Fundamentally, their problems are our problems and our problems are theirs. Whether a Frenchman, Dutch, German, English, Norwegian or Italian, we must all share the responsibility to aid our European kith and kin around the world in any way we can. Their plight is our plight, and their pain is also our pain. To that end, I once again appeal to all Europeans with a sense of honour and brotherhood to do their duty for this urgent cause.